SHHS Water Polo Tears it Up!

This year, both Alex and Nathan played water polo for Shadow Hills High School this year.

What a fun sport to watch!  I really enjoyed watching them play, and if you are going to be a cheering parent, this is the sport to have your child in.  The games are short, but intense, and the action is fierce.  Playing water polo is tough and tiring - you can't ever touch the bottom or the wall and getting you body up out of the water to throw or catch like that takes real strength.  But it is also pretty rough, and though you can get fouled, what happens under the water that the ref can't see is all fair game.  It's like a rugby match played in the water - and that's why my boys love it!

Here is Alex going for the ball.  He mostly plays defense.

Here are some more action shots of Alex.

Nathan plays more offense.  He does a pretty good job and makes his share of goals.  Don't you love how this guy is pushing Nate's head underwater?  Told you it got rough.  He got the shot off though.

It is often a scramble of arms, legs, water splashing, and a bright yellow ball.

Nathan fighting for a chance to make his shot.

SHHS has a pretty good season.  It is a new school, so they are still building their program, but they are coming along pretty well.  They had some important wins and they even got first place in their league (which means they will probably be moving on to another league next year.)

Nathan and Alex also came a long way this year, and it was fun to see them get better and better as the season went along.

Both Alex and Nathan received Varsity Letters for water polo!  Great job, boys!  Go Knights!

Saying Goodbye to Mickey & Friends

This is it, folks!  The very last Disney Cruise post.

Yay!

But I saved the best for last. Here is why.

You see, on Saturday morning there was an envelope outside our stateroom with our name on it.  I didn't see any other envelopes on any other staterooms, so I was curious what it was.  A bill perhaps?  Nope.  It was an invitation!  Apparently, all of the Disney Characters were going to make one last appearance in the main lobby on Saturday night to sing a farewell song, and we were invited to a meet & greet with all of them for a half hour before in one of the dance clubs on board!  

It was AWESOME!!!!!!!!

All the characters were there on the dance floor, and we could just dance, play, talk, and take pics with them.  No lines.  No formality.  You just turn around and there is another character! There were only about 10 families there, tops.  It was a unique and very rare opportunity, and I have no idea how we got chosen.  Nobody I spoke with had any idea how the families were chosen, if it was a random drawing, or picked by recommendation, or what.  Nobody seemed to know, but I consider ourselves extremely lucky!  

It was really a MAGICAL experience!

I finally got a chance to meet my princesses!  I had glimpsed them in passing all week, but my boys, of course, never had any desire to get in line for a picture, so this was my chance! (Yes, I realize that I am nearly 40, but I am still a little girl at heart, and Cinderella and Belle and my two favorites!  I fit right in with my princess ears, don't you think?)

Stitch was quite the party animal! My boys were having way to much fun with that guy.

Goofy, one of my boys' favorites, had some fun with my kids.  He couldn't get enough of Dylan's gum ball ears, and then stole Nathan's Chipmunk hat to wear on top of his.

Nathan and Goofy are totally BFFs!  Totally!

I think Captain Mickey was a bit jealous of Dylan's ears too.  I mean, Mickey has some pretty fantastic ears, but they don't dispense gum balls, now, do they?

Thanks for having us aboard, Mickey, old pal!  We've had a great time!

Donald stole Luke's pirate hat.  He wanted to see how cool he'd look in dreads.  Pretty darn cool, I'd say.

My boys getting some pretty good attention from a pretty gal.  They loved it!

This was an amazing experience!  Priceless.

Then Captain Hook wanted to plunder Dylan's hat for some booty as well.

The Captain tries to recruit a few boys for his crew.

Me & Goofy.  Goofy & goofy.  LOL

I think Stitch wanted to come home with us, but I don't allow pets.

We had a BLAST hanging out with all of our favorite Disney Characters!!!  It was an unexpected and unforgettable treat for our family!  We must have been downwind of some pixie dust somewhere!  So to whoever it was who decided that our family should get the invite (I think it was Mickey Mouse, actually), THANK YOU!  It was on of the most magical moments of our entire trip.  That's why they call it the Disney Magic, I suppose.

After our meet & greet was over, we stayed up above to watch the characters (and our new BFFs) perform their farewell number.  We had our turn, now it was all of the other thousands of passengers to say good bye. It was only fair.

M-I-C- See you real soon.  

K-E-Y Why? Because we like you!

M-O-U-S-E!  Good-bye everybody!

Finally, all that was left was one more dinner, and a final farewell to Carlo, our favorite Italian magician/waiter, who left us off with one last trick.

And our favorite Jamaican napkin artist on the high seas, Andre!  Thanks guys for making every meal magic!

On Sunday morning, all there was to do was grab some breakfast and disembark.

It was kind of bittersweet to leave what had been our floating home and playground for the last week.

We were all a bit fatter, a bit happier, and bit more loving with each other, and believed just a little bit more... in Magic!

One More Magical Day

(I know, I know.  We are all sick of looking at these Disney Cruise posts.  Sorry.  Life has been, well, no luxury cruise for me, and my blog was the first to suffer.  But I have had a few days this week to work with my backlogged file of photos, and I hope to get caught up with everything real soon.  But first, I have to finish the posts about the Disney Cruise, then finish the RV trip posts, and then the holidays, and then...  Well, I might not get caught up as soon as I'd like, but I'm sure gonna give it a shot, 

so here we go!)

HAving had a fantastic few days in the sand and sun of Cabo, we were ready to spend the last day and a half hanging out on board while the Wonder speeded its way back to LA.  Luke apparently took "hanging out" quite literally as he was hanging his head down the stairs of the main lobby as the passengers were making their way to the dining rooms.

Friday night was a special night in the dining room - it was international night!  After dinner, all of the waiters came parading out of the kitchen holding the flags of their various countries.  It was so cool!  There were some many different countries represented there.  At the end of the parade were the chefs carrying the grand finale - flaming baked Alaska!  Yum!

Of course, our favorites were a certain Jamaican and a certain Italian who need no introduction.  My boys loved these guys!

Good ol Andre.  I wish we could have taken him off the boat with us!

Saturday was the last full day on board and a sea day, so the kids had one more chance to do all their favorite stuff.  For Caleb, that was cooking school at the Lab.

Luke was at the Lab too.  He developed an addiction to Mario Kart on this trip.

Nathan doing some last minute pin trading with the crew.

I turned around and saw Peter Pan himself watching all the action with Goofy in the lobby down below.  This kind of thing, just having the Disney characters popping in and out and hanging around is part of what makes a Disney Cruise so magical.

I gave Al & Nate a camera to get some pics of the adult-restricted teen lounge up on the very top deck of the ship.  They took dozens of pics, but these are the only ones that actually looked like anything.  I guess what goes on in the teen lounge will remain top secret.  It must be a great place, though, because they spent an awful lot of time up there.

I took the opportunity on that last day to get a few fun shots of the place we called home all week.  I LOVE the little Disney details, like the Mickey hand pointing to the floor # over the elevators and that all your favorite Disney tunes are piped into the hallways 24/7.  Zippadeedooda!

All hands on deck!

Look up! Its the great chandelier.

The statue of Ariel in the main lobby.

The whole ship was a great combination of glamor and whimsey that I loved!

In the afternoon I got a text on my WavePhone inviting all the parents to the main stage for a special performance!

All of the kids on board got to perform some awesome singing and dancing "Friendship Rocks" on the big stage with Minnie and Mickey themselves.  It was awesome and so fun to see how excited they were to be up there performing for us!  What a great way to say goodbye!

That night, we saw the final farewell stage show that celebrated so many of the Disney movies.  It was awesome - almost as good as the Friendship Rocks show that the kids put on.